My 2 cents on given US politics, international affairs, issues, and etc

Menu

Comey-Testimony Part 2

Bare in mind, Trump violated Responsibility to Protest that mandates aid provided is provided to the ‘Established government’ unless an alternative established government is established such as North-South Korea and Vietnam in the Syrian strikes not once but twice.
Recall, Presidents may only act unilaterally with the direct and imminent threat to the US directly via national security not national interests Constitutionally, and there’s the issue only Hawkish WMDs or Dove-Hawks Humanitarianism to take it to the UN Security Council and may not prove to be under false pretenses to provide aid otherwise outside medications, clothing, food, and non-military nature to civilians.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Bureau’s goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves “turning” the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will “open an investigation” on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

The former FBI director told lawmakers that after he was fired, he asked a “close friend” to leak to a reporter the contents of one memo he wrote about his interactions with Trump.

Comey said he hoped leaking the memo, which he considered a private document, might spur the appointment of a special counselto oversee the Russia investigation.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) described Comey as “big” and “strong” but asked why he didn’t have the strength to tell the president directly that his request to drop an investigation into Flynn was wrong and something he shouldn’t discuss with him.

“Maybe if I were stronger, I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation that I just took it in,” Comey said, adding that he tried to preserve the president’s words in his head as he mulled an adequate response.

“And look, I’ve seen the tweet about tapes. Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey said.

“Was the president under investigation at the time of your dismissal on May 9?” asked Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Comey’s response was brief: “No.”

Comey said he pushed back on then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s directive last year to refer to the then-ongoing probe into Hillary Clinton’s email practices as a “matter,” not an investigation. In hindsight, he said, maybe he should have resisted harder.

“That combination of things I had never experienced before, but had led me to believe I’ve got to write it down and I’ve got to write it down in a very detailed way,” Comey said.

“I knew that there might come a day when I would need a record of what had happened, not just to defend myself, but to defend the FBIand our integrity as an institution and the independence of our investigative function,” he said.

“I take the president at his word that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey said. “Something about the way I was conducting it, the president felt created pressure on him that he wanted to relieve. Again, I didn’t know that at the time. But I’ve watched his interview. I’ve read the press accounts of his conversations.”

Comey disputed the Trump administration’s initial explanation for his abrupt firing, rebutting the notion that he was a poor leader who had lost the confidence of his workforce.

Former FBI director Jim Comey’s testimony on Capitol Hill either completely vindicated President Donald Trump or further implicated him.

That depends on which media is reporting the story.

According to many right-wing outlets, Comey not only cleared Trump by confirming that he was not personally under investigation, he also helped stir up old drama around the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails and admitted he orchestrated leaks to the media after his firing.

Much of the rest of the media, however, focused on Comey saying he took Trump’s statement that he “hopes” the FBI would drop the investigation into Michael Flynn as a directive, that Trump “lied” and “defamed” Comey and the FBI, and that Comey took detailed notes about his meetings with Trump because he was concerned that Trump would later lie about them.

That mainstream outlets and conservative outlets would focus on different aspects of the testimony isn’t entirely surprising, but reflects the extent that conservative media is backing Trump when even some Republican senators are condemning his handling of Comey.

Comey would not directly say that the President had committed “obstruction of justice.” But he surely implied it.

Comey’s personal estimation of Donald Trump was devastating. He talked about “the nature of the person” and that he wrote everything down after meeting with him or talking to him on the phone because he thought “he might lie.”

He skillfully used Trump’s own words to explain this action. The words which Trump said to the Russian foreign minister and Ambassador to “relieve the pressure” on the Russian investigation.

But the ousted FBI director gave Robert Mueller plenty to work with as the special counsel investigates whether the president or his allies committed any crimes.

“I don’t think it’s for me to say whether the conversation I had with the president was an effort to obstruct,” Comey said. “I took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that’s a conclusion I’m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand what the intention was there, and whether that’s an offense.”

After President Trump said Friday he is “100 percent” willing to testify under oath about the events that led to firing James Comey as FBI director, a House Democrat wants to take him up on it.

Within hours of Trump’s statement at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) called on House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to invite the president before their panel.

The narrative that the Trump team colluded with Russia took a hit, but the claim that Trump abused his power in firing Comey got a boost.

And in this case, Trump’s conduct is disturbing. It’s once again worth noting that we now have on-the-record, sworn evidence (combined with evidence from Trump himself) that the following things occurred:
1. Trump improperly asked the director of the FBI to pledge his loyalty to the president;
2. He improperly cleared the Oval Office to privately ask the director of the FBI to drop an ongoing investigation of a former senior White House aide and campaign surrogate;
3. He improperly directly asked the director of the FBI to make various public statements indicating that the president wasn’t being personally investigated;
4. Trump fired Comey after Comey did not comply with his various unusual and improper directives;
5. He then misled the public about the reason; and 6. He later admitted that he was, in fact, thinking of Comey’s conduct of the Russia investigation when he terminated him.

Trump’s primary protection against impeachment is and remains the loyalty of the Republican base and the Republican majority in Congress, not his ability to prevail before a jury of his peers.

When Bush, who spoke yesterday to a standing-room-only crowd at Boston College’s 12th annual Carroll School of Management Finance Conference, was asked whether Trump obstructed justice, he replied, “No, I don’t, but who cares what I think?”

Bush went on to lament the lack of compromise and the constant quarreling that has engulfed Washington.

The agency found that Scavino breached a provision of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees engaging in some forms of political activity while acting in their official capacity.

Scavino tweeted at Michigan Republican Rep. Justin Amash on April 1, days after Trump failed to persuade Republicans to support an early version of his preferred health care legislation. Amash, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, formed part of the bloc of House conservatives that sealed the bill’s initial demise.

-As a general rule of thumb, the accused taking the stand/testimony tends to be an act of extreme desperation as it can easily lead to perjury.
-Comey’s testimony didn’t do much in terms of the political ideological balance of power in Congress and the White House; in fact, I’d argue it grants plenty of wiggle room for escalating the balance of power.

As I’ve observed previously, it looks a lot like Trump is going to be a 1-term or less Presidency; the only remaining questions are:
-Before or after the 2018 mid-term election cycle?
-2020 Primary Challenge?

In other words, do they roll the cast for President Pence and negate the 2020 primary challenge option, or will they try getting Trump’s supporters centrally voting a middle finger to move closer to alignment of Republicans’ leaderships’ interests?